Japan is one of the largest smartphone markets in the world and can also be considered one of the early innovators of mobile phone culture. The first smartphone to be widely adopted within a country had e-mail capabilities and was introduced as early as 1999 by
in Japan. More features followed shortly after, such as 3G networks in 2001 and the world’s first wallet phone in 2004. Despite widespread acknowledgment and praise, Japanese mobile phones were never fully able to gain a foothold in overseas markets. Instead, the industry turned excessively inwards, a tendency that has been called “Galápagos syndrome” due to the high specialization achieved by focusing on a single market. However, the domestic dissemination of mobile phones was more than profitable and gave Japanese phone makers little incentive to venture into overseas markets.
Apple’s iPhone is the dominant brand
As Japanese consumers are highly discerning when it comes to mobile phones and brands, foreign phone makers initially struggled to enter the market. In 2008, just when the business climate started to change due to a recession, the first Apple iPhone hit the Japanese market. Lacking some features essential for Japanese consumers, such as infrared ports, a QR code scanner, TV tuner, and emojis, it initially achieved rather lackluster sales results, as consumers did not see the benefits of using iPhones instead of domestic phones. However, this changed in the following years.
SoftBank, which had obtained exclusive rights to the iPhone for three years, played a big part in Apple’s success by running an aggressive marketing campaign from February 2009 to January 2010 that involved highly affordable prices for iPhones. In addition, Apple partly adjusted its products to the Japanese market. As time progressed, the company gained large market shares and became the
leading smartphone vendor in the Japanese market. As a result, iPhones now regularly dominate the ranking of the
best-selling smartphone models in Japan.
Major mobile carriers introduced 5G networks
The
smartphone penetration rate among households in Japan stood at more than 90 percent in 2022, indicating the high relevance smartphones have for people in their everyday lives. For many years, smartphone retail in Japan has been dominated by three
major mobile carriers: NTT Docomo, au by KDDI, and SoftBank. From March 2020 onward, all three traditional mobile carriers began providing
5G network services in stages, starting in limited urban areas. Rakuten Mobile, which became the country’s fourth proper mobile carrier in 2020, started rolling out its 5G service in September of that year. The postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, which were carried out in the summer of 2021, provided an important time frame for the implementation of 5G services. As 5G offers a vastly improved speed, capacity, and latency, it exerts a positive influence on user experiences in areas such as live-streaming and
mobile gaming.
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